North Korea’s state-run food shops have little or no rice to sell to consumers
According to multiple Daily NK sources in North Korea recently, state food shops across the country continue to open their doors and staff show up to work, but they have nothing to sell.
Shops face the same situation in small cities as well as in large ones, such as Hyesan in Yanggang Province and Sinuiju in North Pyongan Province. One source told Daily NK that shops with rice stocks have “10 sacks [of rice] at most.”
A source in Pyongyang said few residents of the city use the state-run food shops “because many are government cadres who receive rations.”
“The performance of the state food shops in Pyongyang is the lowest in the country,” he continued, adding, “And they’re not operating now, either.”
From July 6, starting in Pyongyang, state food shops began selling five days’ worth of rice per person at prices slightly lower than could be found in the markets.
Initially, North Korean authorities had planned to provide citizens with three months of grain per person at lower-than-market prices. This became impossible, however, due to insufficient supplies of the commodity. ......
[Source: Daily NK]
